SINGAPORE, Nov. 13, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The market for Unified Communication as a service (UCaaS) is recovering as a result of better economic conditions and growing customer awareness of the benefits of hosted and cloud communications.

While hosted telephony and audio conferencing services are the two most established segments in the APAC UCaaS market, mobility and video collaboration services are fast catching up. Disruptive business models and emerging vendors are expected to drive the innovation and adoption of these technologies in the future.

Cloud computing and continuous improvement of network quality and connections also positively influence the market. The trends of mobility and bring-your-own-device further catalyse the adoption of UCaaS among large enterprises.

However, telecom regulations in countries like China and India have created major entry barriers for global telecom service providers, creating an unbalanced competitive landscape that could stifle innovation.

"Offering unique value to customers is another distinctive challenge in this space as most offerings are similar in terms of capabilities and pricing, and often lack simplicity, speed and scalability. To rise to this challenge, service providers need to bundle a broad set of capabilities," saidJessie Yu, Industry Manager for Frost & Sullivan's Asia Pacific Information and Communication Technologies practice.

Market participants also need to address concerns regarding security and data protection by ensuring service reliability. The absence of common protocols and standards among many local and regional service providers also hinder customer reach to their clients, partners and suppliers through advanced technologies such as video.

"Once common standards are in place, the most suitable strategy for migrating to UCaaS will be to integrate existing systems and legacy applications with the cloud," said Yu. "Moreover, to achieve long-term growth in a highly fragmented market such as this, partnerships and acquisitions are imperative. This would also serve to expand the breadth of knowledge and expertise of players, thereby increasing their chances of success," she added.

If you are interested in more information on this research, please send an email to Donna Jeremiah, Corporate Communications, at djeremiah@frost.com, with your full name, company name, job title, telephone number, company email address, company website, city, state and country.

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